September
Big Brother Goes to College
From CCN Article: Spellings backs ideas to simplify college choices (or you can grab some news from the Chronicle free for once.)
Handed a plan to shake up college life in America, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is endorsing some of its key ideas [...]
High on her list is the creation of a massive information system — a way to judge how colleges and universities are doing in helping students succeed. It would require a vast collection of data on students, with a promise that their privacy will be protected.
The Education Department would work with states and colleges to make that happen, Spellings said Monday, commenting for the first time on a national commission’s ideas.
The department would then use the data to overhaul its college Web site. The idea is for people to compare one school to another, right down to the typical salaries of graduates.
[...]
Spellings said she also wants to:
Provide matching federal money to states, colleges and universities that report how well their students are performing. The money will be offered as an incentive for candor. Call together groups that accredit universities and try to change the standards upon which schools are judged. The goal would be to put more emphasis on student performance.
I’m still kind of reeling too much to get a grasp on what this could mean… First thoughts are:
1) How can they enforce some kind of federal database with private institutions?
2) Does this mean a federally-mandated grading standard would have to be enforced?
3) Somehow I doubt this is going to get off the ground…
4) OMG WTF??!!1!
September 26th, 2006 at 8:55 pm
#1: security isn’t really mentioned, but that won’t be an issue, right? I mean, this is the federal government here. They handle database privacy perfectly well. The veterans bu–er, well, the census bureau was able to–
hey, wait a second…
September 26th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
This got shot down in the past because they wanted to use social security numbers as the identifier. This time around they’ve changed it to ID numbers generated for this purpose, but if they ever want to link this database to IRS records (to track alumni salaries *shudder*) they’re going to have to key it to SSNs eventually.
September 26th, 2006 at 11:16 pm
“How can they enforce some kind of federal database with private institutions?”
Two words: financial aid.
Also, I concur on #4 in particular. (The word “consumer” is going to make faculty heads explode all across America.)